Nataliya Karatkova
Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Nataliya and I’m a self-employed web developer. In recent years I’ve been working remotely from Minsk. Mostly I write HTML/CSS and sometimes JavaScript. I still have much to learn. In my free time I study a lot.
What is your day like?
10:00 Three kittens wake me up. They are temporarily living with me. When my boyfriend opens the door they run into the bedroom, jump onto the bed and begin to purr. Such a cute way to start a day! Firstly I’m going to feed them, then I cook a packed lunch for my boyfriend.
10:40 Oatmeal for breakfast and reading the news. I have the same breakfast every day because I don’t want to worry about it.
11:00 I look at the list of tasks and schedule my day. I have a call with a PM. During the breaks I read Twitter.
12:00 I try to close priority tasks.
14:00 I have dinner at home. Usually I watch any front-end talk. Sometimes I do the laundry or clean a small area in the house.
14:45 Working hard.
17:15 Three times a week I get on a bus to the High-Tech Park which is located on the outskirts of Minsk. Along the way I listen to a podcast, read something or just relax. I attend here a Front-end course called Rolling School
18:00 A lecture starts and it takes 3 hours. This course is very time consuming for me but it’s free and structured very well. I find it very helpful even though the course is aimed at students.
22:00 I’m home! Sometimes I go to the grocery store. Supper time and “The X-Files” begins on TV. Usually we do not watch TV but this TV series has become a tradition. If I’m not very tired and feeling well I can do something for work or study.
Between 24:00 and 04:00 I wash the dishes, take a warm shower and go to bed.
What instruments or software help you in your life and work?
I’m an OS X user. After upgrading my old iMac to SSD and more RAM I see no reason to buy another. Also I have 11" MacBook Air for out-of-home use. At the beginning I had a lot of doubts about its size and performance. Nevertheless I found it perfect!
I mainly use Chrome as my default browser because Chrome Developer Tools are so powerful. For coding I use Atom and iTerm, Nylas N1 combines my emails and has a nice interface, Evernote keeps my notes, f.lux cares about my eyes and reminds to go to bed, Assistent.By helps me with book-keeping.
Unfortunately right now I haven’t got enough time to do sports regularly. Not so long ago I did yoga and went to a gym. It had a very de-stressing effect and helped me to be active. With the arrival of warm weather I’m planning to attend free yoga classes in the park at the weekends. Also I have a road bike Diamant Saphir. This is a wonderful kind of pastime I think.
